On August 26 and 27, we brought together a remarkable group of corporate directors, executives, investors, advisors and governance leaders for the inaugural Boardroom Governance Summit at Limerick Lane Cellars in Healdsburg, California.
The idea behind the Summit was simple: create a highly curated gathering where board members and governance leaders could have the kinds of candid conversations that are increasingly difficult to have at large conferences.
For two days in Sonoma wine country, that is exactly what happened.
The conversations ranged from CEO succession and board leadership to AI, energy infrastructure, innovation, audit committees and the changing responsibilities of directors.
But much of the value came from what happened between the formal sessions: conversations over dinner, during the wine tasting, at lunch in the vineyards and in the many discussions that continued after the panels ended.
A different kind of governance gathering
We opened the Summit on Wednesday evening with a reception and dinner, followed by a fireside conversation with Leo E. Strine, Jr., former Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court and now Of Counsel at Wachtell Lipton.
Our discussion ranged widely across the changing governance landscape, including Delaware corporate law, board independence, AI, geopolitics and the growing complexity facing directors.
The following day was built around a series of conversations rather than traditional presentations.
Karen Francis DeGolia and Penny Herscher joined me to open the program with a conversation about CEO succession and what boards need to get right. We discussed succession as an ongoing board responsibility, the development of internal candidates, chair-CEO relationships, founder dynamics, and how rapid technological change is reshaping the profile of the CEO companies may need next.
Later, Yvonne Wassenaar and Alla Whitston tackled one of the questions now confronting virtually every board: how directors should govern in the age of AI.
One line from the discussion has stayed with me:
“The one thing that we know, in the boardrooms that I sit, is that the sure path to death is to not do AI.”
Their conversation captured an important tension. Boards need to understand and manage the considerable risks created by AI, while also recognizing that failing to move quickly enough may itself be one of the greatest strategic risks.
Next, Sabastian Niles and Jackie Liu joined me for a conversation about board leadership at the pace of change. We discussed how boards can remain effective when technology, regulation, capital markets and geopolitics are all moving quickly, and what strong board leadership looks like when directors are being asked to make consequential decisions with incomplete information.
Sue Siegel joined me for a conversation on innovation, life sciences and governance in a changing world. Drawing on her experience across healthcare, technology and multiple public-company boards, we discussed how boards can support innovation while overseeing risk, capital allocation and long development cycles in industries where both the opportunities and the uncertainty can be unusually high.
Next, Barney Harford, Thomas Evans and Victor Gustaf Gao joined me for a discussion about the board of the future and adaptive governance. We explored how boards can become more responsive to rapid technological and business change, what capabilities directors will increasingly need, and how governance differs across public companies, private companies and businesses undergoing transformation.
We then turned to America’s energy infrastructure with Vivas Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Mitra Chem. We discussed the growing demands created by AI and data centers, as well as vulnerabilities in the battery supply chain and the strategic importance of domestic manufacturing. The conversation focused on resilience, investment and the board-level implications of building more secure energy and technology infrastructure.
We closed the formal program with a conversation about CFOs, audit chairs and value creation. We discussed how their roles increasingly extend beyond traditional financial oversight into strategy, risk, technology, capital allocation and long-term performance, and how the relationship between management and the board continues to evolve.
Across all of these conversations, one theme kept resurfacing: boards are being asked to make increasingly consequential decisions at a moment when the pace of change is accelerating and many of the traditional playbooks are being rewritten.
Taking the conversations beyond Healdsburg
One of my goals from the beginning was for the Summit not to end when everyone left Healdsburg.
We recorded the main sessions and are now releasing them as a special series through the Boardroom Governance Podcast and our YouTube channel.
The first two conversations are now available:
CEO Succession: What Boards Need to Get Right
with Karen Francis DeGolia and Penny Herscher
Podcast Website (with show notes) | Apple Podcast | Spotify
Directing in the Age of AI
with Yvonne Wassenaar and Alla Whitston
Podcast Website (with show notes) | Apple Podcast | Spotify
Additional Summit conversations will be released over the coming weeks.
You can follow the complete series here:
Boardroom Governance Podcast
Podcast website | Apple Podcast | Spotify
Boardroom Governance on YouTube
Subscribe to the channel
Watch the Boardroom Governance Summit 2026 playlist
To preserve the candid environment of the Summit, the public recordings do not include audience Q&A.
I am grateful to everyone who took the time to join us in Healdsburg, particularly our speakers, participants and sponsors who helped make the first Summit possible.
A special thank you to Karen Francis DeGolia and the team at Limerick Lane Cellars for welcoming us to such a distinctive setting, to our 2026 presenting sponsors Morrison & Foerster, DHR Global and MUFG, and to Alpha AI for sponsoring the wine tasting on the first day.
Most of all, I came away convinced that there is real value in creating a place where people with significant boardroom experience can spend meaningful time together, challenge one another and discuss what is changing before the answers are obvious.
We plan to do it again in 2027.
If you would like to hear about the next Boardroom Governance Summit, you can follow Boardroom Governance here on Substack and visit boardroom-governance.com
Looking forward to seeing many of you in Healdsburg next August!
Onward and upward.
Sincerely,
Evan Epstein
Boardroom Governance | LinkedIn | Podcast | YouTube | Twitter
Thanks for sharing -sorry could not attend!